Jilly the Pink Walk hero

Harcourts Taupō owner Mary-Louise Johns, Good Sort Jilly Stanaway and MP for Taupō Louise Upston.

Jilly Stanaway has plenty of reasons to put her time and energy into the annual Taupō Pink Walk fundraiser.

By Dan Hutchinson

Jilly was honoured this week with the Harcourts Taupō Good Sort, for her efforts in organising the annual event which supports the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ.

She says the cause is “very close to my heart”, having lost four close family members to cancer.

“Anyone who knows me, knows that my favourite colour is pink and that I’ve lost most of my close family to cancer, so put that together with my passion for organising themed occasions/parties and you get Harcourts Taupō Pink Walk”

July this year marked 10 years since her “beloved mummy left this world after fighting breast cancer for 19 years” and May marked 33 years since she lost her dad to bowel cancer.

She has also lost Grandma and Nana to breast cancer.

“My mum, my nana, my grandma and my dad. So, yes, it's very close to my heart. They've all had cancer. And my nana, my mum and my grandma had breast cancer.”

She got involved in running the Pink Walk six years ago, after the previous organisers lost their funding for the event.

She starts organising the event in about June and is always “blown away” by how much support she gets from sponsors when she puts the word out.

She is an apiarist and landscaper by trade and initially uses wet days to get the ball rolling on the event.

As the event gets closer she puts more and more time into it, making sure she has the necessary sponsors and has ticked all the boxes with the council.

It is the first time she has used Eventbrite for people to book tickets.

“Before that, I put all these hours in, and you never know whether two people are going to turn up. And then when they all start pouring in and then it turns into a sea of pink … it just rocks my socks.”

Harcourts Taupō was the major sponsor for the event this year on October 5 and owner Mary-Louise Johns says the hundreds of people that turned up for the walk were there because they had “genuine reasons” for being there and they had actually been affected by cancer in some way.

MP for Taupō Louise Upston was on hand to hand out the award and said breast cancer is something that affects “far too many women and families, including my own”.

“So, what you have provided with your service of organising the annual Pink Walk will go far beyond what you probably have ever anticipated.”

About 200-300 people turn up each year to do the pink walk, many dressing in costumes and others who bring their pets along for the walk.

This year, more than $5000 was raised for the cause. To donate, head to fundraise.bcf.org.nz/fundraisers/taupopinkwalk